Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lithium jump starters

The car battery thread got me thinking about lithium jump starters like the Noco. Reviews on Amazon and Youtube are mostly good. Really good.

Then there's a few people who say their Noco swelled up and split the casing or it won't take a charge - either out of the box or after a year.

Assuming that many of the bad reviews are from folks who didn't read the directions or somehow abused their units - and maybe there were some legitimately defective units out there ....

But how delicate are these things? If I get one I want to keep it in my vehicle and I'd like to think it didn't need to be treated like an unexploded IED.

Price may determine quality. I was given one at a Christmas party, it wasn’t very expensive $30 or so from Walmart . It failed jumping my outboard motor (4cyl) and wouldn’t charge my iPhone..

Have not used a NoCo. Got a "Booster PAC ES5000" three years ago from NAPA for about the same money. Fully charged it right after I got it. Left it outside for a year (plus) to jump my lawn mower at least 1x per week. Used it several times to start "lawn ornament" vehicles that get little usage. Finally brought it in and fully charged it for the second time last month before taking it on a trip. Never an issue with starting one, four, or six cylinder gas motors. Have not tried it on a diesel.

MUCH EASIER than jockeying another vehicle and stretching jumper cables. Another one of those things, now that I have it, "Why did I wait so long?"

I used to have a jump starter in my trunk that was so heavy that I almost needed a hand truck to move it around. These new LI's are great. It's amazing how much juice they can cramp in a wallet sized box.

You can also probably assume many of the good reviews are fake.

Those batteries can explode or burn.

Yours may or may not, regardless of how you treat it.

Seen a jump starter explode or burn?

I bought one years ago and payed about 125 bucks for it.

It has started more than a few cars/trucks but no diesels.

It did a darn good job when apple screwed up everyone's older phone batteries.

Fits in the palm of the hand and don't weight much.

Searching for stories about lithium jump starters catching on fire and not finding any in recent years. Probably more likely to get hit by lightning I guess.

I work for a collision repair center and we use this one ($155) daily with excellent results:
Clore Charger

Just ordered the NOCO GB70 this morning. Has good reviews. We’ll see

Noco 150 here. Works great, no problems so far.